Chapter II
Strategic Planning

Beginnings of the Allied Force

A period of uncertainty followed President
Roosevelt's decision that Operation
TORCH should immediately be made a paramount
undertaking to be launched at the
earliest possible moment. The Joint Chiefs
of Staff were not convinced of the finality
of this decision until 30 July. Although
they informed the British Chiefs of Staff of
it the next day, an official communication to
the Prime Minister was delayed for a week
during Joint Chiefs' studies to ascertain the
actual earliest possible date for the attack.
Choice of a commander in chief was therefore
retarded. The agreement reached by
the Combined Chiefs of Staff in London on
25 July had provided for one American
supreme commander over both ROUNDUP
and TORCH, pending the decision to mount
the latter, and for an American to be supreme commander of TORCH but a temporary
vacancy to prevail in the supreme
command of ROUNDUP, after such a decision.

The British proposal that General Marshall
be named supreme commander and
that Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower be
his deputy was never discussed with General
Marshall by the President. Instead, the
President approved the designation of General
Eisenhower to be Allied supreme commander
of TORCH. That he would do so was
indicated on 31 July, but official action
awaited an exchange of messages with the
Prime Minister on 6 August. Both leaders
then also agreed that the invasion should
occur as early in October as might prove
feasible, rather than on 30 October, as estimated
by the military planners.

A directive from the Combined Chiefs of
Staff to General Eisenhower was not approved
until 13 August, almost three weeks
after the decision to launch the invasion.
Meanwhile, General Eisenhower assumed
the leadership on a provisional basis in
formulating an outline plan acceptable to
the Combined Chiefs of Staff. But the
organization of a staff, selection of major
commanders, elaboration of operational
plans and orders, arrangements for specialized
training, and provision of matériel and
transportation went forward rapidly only
after the uncertainty surrounding the supreme
command had been terminated.1

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General Eisenhower's Directive

A strategic (or outline) plan for Operation
TORCH was in preparation for six weeks
before Allied agreement was reached on 5
September. Once again, the President and
the Prime Minister had to intervene to resolve
a wide divergence in the views of the
Combined Chiefs of Staff.

General Eisenhower's directive of 13
August described his mission as gaining, in
conjunction with Allied Forces in the Middle
East, complete control of northern
Africa from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.
The first stage would be to establish firm,
mutually supported lodgments in the Oran-Algiers-Tunis area on the north coast, and
in the Casablanca area on the northwest
coast, in order to have readily available
good bases for continued and intensified air,
ground, and sea operations. A second stage
was to extend control over the entire area
of French Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia,
and in case of hostile action by the Spanish,
over Spanish Morocco also. The Allies
would thus create conditions favorable for
further offensive operations through Libya
against the rear of the Axis forces in the
Western Desert. The ultimate objective
would be "complete annihilation of Axis
forces now opposing the British forces in the
Western Desert and intensification of air
and sea operations against the Axis on the
European Continent."2

The Objective

Northwest Africa's three major political
divisions--Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia--were all under European control.3
Most of the region was within the empire of
France, but Morocco was divided into three
separate sections of which only one was
French. It was much the largest. About 5
percent of Morocco was dominated by
Spain. The third section, a very small zone
adjacent to the port of Tangier, was legally
under international guardianship, but since
June 1940 was in the military possession of
Spain. Between Morocco and Tunisia lay
Algeria. It was the most nearly French. Its
maritime border section comprised three of
the departments of the Third French Republic
sending representatives to the prewar
legislative assemblies in Paris. Native or
naturalized French citizens formed over 10
percent of its population. A Governor General
and a French military administration
governed directly its southern provinces.

Morocco and Tunisia were nominally
ruled by the absolute authority, civil and
religious, of native rulers, the Sultan of
Morocco and the Bey of Tunis. Actually, in
the capital of each, the French maintained
a Resident General who conducted all foreign
relations and supervised, by means of
a French staff, the civil administration by
native officials.

The population of the three colonies
totaled approximately 16,700,000, of which
all but 1,500,000 were either Berber or
Arabic Moslems. Only 175,000 of the
6,500,000 inhabitants of French Morocco
were French by birth or naturalization; a

--16--

mere 110,000 of the 2,700,000 in Tunisia
could be so classified. Between the Moslems
and the native Jews, relations were always
discordant; anti-Semitism was not a Fascist
importation. In addition to the numbers
given here in round figures, military personnel
and refugees from Europe added an increment
of undeterminable size.

The ring of territories adjacent to the
desert was kept at all times directly under
military control, stemming from the headquarters
of the Commander in Chief of all
French Army forces in North Africa, at Algiers.
In November 1942 this officer was
Gen. Alphonse Juin. In 1940, beginning
with the arrival of Gen. Maxime Weygand
as Commissioner-General under Marshal
Pétain, and again in 1942, at the instigation
of Adm. Jean François Darlan, high
officers of the Army or Navy replaced civilians
in almost all the leading administrative
positions. The Resident General for Morocco
at Rabat was Gen. Auguste Paul
Noguès, and for Tunisia at Tunis, Vice
Adm. Jean-Pierre Estéva. While the Governor
General of Algeria was a civilian, M.
Yves Chatel, his cabinet was headed by
Vice Adm. Raymond Fenard.

The Combined Planning Staff in London
had to develop an outline plan for TORCH
which was adapted to a large and complex
area comprising more than 1,000,000
square miles (1,074,238). The distances
were considerable. From Casablanca to
Tunis, for example, is 1,274 miles by
motor road and over 1,000 miles by
airline. Safi, a south Moroccan port, lies
near the thirty-second parallel, north latitude,
corresponding to that of San Diego,
California, while Algiers, Bizerte, and
Tunis are near the thirty-seventh parallel,
the latitude of San Francisco and St. Louis.
Because of unfavorable geographical conditions,
the population is concentrated in a
small part of the total area, principally at
the ports. The coast of Morocco on the Atlantic
side is fairly flat and open, but on the
Mediterranean side, from a point opposite
Gibraltar to another about 150 miles to the
east, the crescent-shaped mass of the lofty
Er Rif mountains effectively bars access to
the interior. Thence eastward as far as Tunisia,
coastal ranges, occasionally interrupted
by plains and narrow river valleys,
drop sharply into the Mediterranean. In
Algeria and Tunisia, this belt of rugged terrain
forms the northern portion of the Région
du Tell (maritime Atlas mountain
area), a group of parallel bands of mountains
and valleys between the sea and the
region of high plateaus.

Rising near the ocean in southern Morocco
and stretching northeastward for more
than a thousand miles are the masses and
high crests of the Atlas Mountains. At one
point they approach so closely the Er Rif
mountains of Spanish Morocco that only a
limited defile, the Taza gap, permits access
from the plains of French Morocco to the
Algerian Région du Tell. Northwest of the
Atlas Mountains, within French Morocco,
are two main regions. Along the coast is a
level plain crossed by meandering streams,
a plain which extends inland most irregularly
and lies below Morocco's rugged counterpart
of Algeria's high plateaus. This second
region is severely eroded, with large
areas of bare rock, of steep-sided valleys, and
of thin-soiled hills. The terrain is so difficult
that for centuries, travelers between northern
and southern Morocco have skirted
along its coastal rim.

The Atlantic coast of Morocco has few
capes or headlands and no natural harbors.
Strong winds and extremely heavy swell and

--17--

Map 1
Lines of Communication in French North Africa

surf prevail. Artificial ports, protected by
breakwaters and dredged to suitable depths,
were constructed by the French, especially
during the regime of Marshal Louis Lyautey
after World War I. Their location was determined
not by coastal features but by the
nature of the adjacent hinterland. Casablanca
surpassed all other ports in area,
depth, loading facilities, and storage capacity.
It handled almost 90 percent of Morocco's
prewar traffic and served as the gateway
for overseas shipments to all northwestern
Africa. Lesser ports were Safi, Rabat-Salé, Mehdia, and Port-Lyautey, the last
of which was several miles up the shallow
Sebou river from its mouth at Mehdia.

None of Morocco's rivers are navigable
for a substantial distance. The railroad system
which linked these ports with the hinterland
and with Algeria and Tunisia had as
its main line a standard-gauge, partly electrified
route which ran from Marrakech
through Casablanca, Rabat˝Salé, and Port-Lyautey to Oujda. One branch ran to Safi,

--18--

a second to Tangier, and others to interior
communities. Invading forces of any size
would need to control the ports of Safi,
Casablanca, and Port-Lyautey.

The Algerian coast faces the Mediterranean
Sea with many headlands but no deep
indentations. At the few points at which
plains or valleys lead inland from the wide
bays, artificial ports have been constructed
or natural harbors improved. The best unloading
facilities and railroad connections,
the planners recognized, were at Oran, Algiers,
Bougie, Philippeville, and Bône. (Map
1) The main line of railroad ran eastward
from Oujda, near the Moroccan boundary,
through Tlemcen to Oran, thence through
interior valleys some twenty miles south of
the coast to Algiers, Sétif, and Souk Ahras,
from which it crossed northern Tunisia
through Bédja to Bizerte and through Medjez
el Bab to Tunis. Branch lines of one-meter
gauge connected lesser ports, such as
Nemours, Beni Saf, Arzew, Mostaganem,
and Cherchel with the main line.

--19--

In Tunisia almost all the railroads were
narrow gauge. Such a line followed the coast
from Tunis southward through Sousse and
Sfax to Gabès, with branches westward
from Sousse to Kasserine, from Sfax to
Gafsa and Tozeur, and from Tunis by a
great southerly loop to Tébessa and Constantine
in Algeria. From this loop ran
several short branches. Thus all the major
ports, Bizerte, Tunis, Sousse, and Sfax, were
linked with the main system from Morocco
and with communities situated in the valleys
of central and western Tunisia. For forces
invading Tunisia overland from the west,
they furnished meager assistance to any
large-scale movement. It was clear to the
planners that the sea approach must be used
as far as possible and that the limited railroads
would require supplementing by
maximum use of the highways.

The main highways system consisted of
one east-west coastal route and one interior
and roughly parallel route, the two being
linked by numerous interconnections. Surfaced
with bitumen, with the bridges capable
of at least twenty-five-ton traffic, these
roads were used by an active autobus system
and could support two-way traffic at most
points. But they did have bottlenecks--one-way
bridges, tunnels just large enough for
one bus, and sharp turns high on the sides of
precipitous mountain gorges. From Souk
et Tnine northeast to Djidjelli on the coastal
route, the road ran in a notch excavated in
the side of a cliff for nearly thirty miles.
High passes were subject to snow blockades
in the winter months. Alternative stream
crossings, in case of the failure of any highway
bridges, involved steep-sided river beds
which could be forded only in dry summer
weather, or deep gorges which might best
be spanned by adapting railroad bridges to
motor traffic also.

In addition to these roads of the main
system, a highway ran from Constantine to
Tébessa in eastern Algeria, and thence to
the Tunisian coast at Gabès via Gafsa, or at
Sfax or Sousse via Sbeïtla. Much of this
particular route was newly widened, graded,
and surfaced as a military road. The secondary
roads in general lacked surfacing or
drainage which would keep them impassable
in wet weather under heavy motor transport;
even in dry weather, they were incapable
of relieving much of the pressure on
the main system. Northwest Africa's highways
therefore would be adequate only if
favorable weather prevailed for the very
heavy traffic to be expected in the drive eastward
into Tunisia. But those facilities were
further limited by the restriction to two
main routes, and counterbalanced also by
the great distances involved. From Algiers
to Tunis the distance was over 540 miles,
and from Philippeville to Tunis more than
240 miles. Oran was 270 miles west of
Algiers, and Casablanca, 458 miles farther
still. An occupying force seeking to bring
Tunisia under control by moving overland
from Algeria and Morocco must bring with
it an impressive volume of vehicles and be
well prepared for highway maintenance.

Of the airdromes in French Morocco five
were considered to be first class, those at
Marrakech and Meknès, about seventy to
eighty miles inland, and at Cazes (near
Casablanca), Rabat˝Salé, and Port-Lyautey
on the coast. The field at Port-Lyautey
was the only installation with concrete runways,
but all five were large enough for
bombers and in dry weather would be usable.
The first-class airdromes were accessible
by railroad and highway. Five other
large fields in French Morocco were classed
as secondary for lack of equipment, inaccessibility
by land, or obstructions to ready

--20--

approach by air. At most of the ports were
seaplane anchorages, and at Port-Lyautey
such a station had once been heavily used by
the French.4

The three primary airdromes in Algeria
were at La Sénia (near Oran), at Maison
Blanche (near Algiers), and at Les Salines
(near Bône). Somewhat less usable were
the inland airfields at Blida (25 miles from
Algiers) and Sétif (about 30 miles from the
Golfe de Bougie). Secondary fields capable
of extension and development included
those at Tafaraoui (16 miles southeast of
Oran), Constantine, and Tébessa. Seaplane
stations had been developed at Oran, Arzew,
Algiers, and Bône.5

Tunisia's air facilities included primary
airdromes at Sidi Ahmed (near Bizerte)
and El Aouina (near Tunis), secondary airdromes
at Kairouan and Gabés, and seaplane
stations at Bizerte, Tunis, and Souse.
On the flat coastal plain were many operational
fields and landing grounds capable of
extension and development.

French forces for the defense of North
Africa had been restricted by the terms of
the armistice with Germany in 1940 and
were understood in 1942 to include an army
of 120,000 men. Of these troops, 55,000
were believed to be in Morocco, 50,000 in
Algeria, and 15,000 in Tunisia when the
basic planning began in London.6
Twelve
units of motorized field artillery had been
allowed but almost no medium and no
heavy artillery. Mechanized cavalry had at
its disposal between 120 and 160 obsolete
tanks and 80 armored cars in Morocco,
about 110 such tanks and 60 armored cars
in Algeria, and only 20 armored cars in
Tunisia. In each of the three colonies, one
regiment of antiaircraft artillery was dispersed,
although at the ports supplementary
batteries were manned by naval personnel.

Estimates of French air strength varies,
but most of it was understood to be concentrated
at the Moroccan airdromes. From
155 to 170 combat planes could be expected
at the first contact, and within two hours
after the alarm, from 166 to 207 additional
aircraft from stations inland.7
Of these, almost
half were thought to be Dewoitine 520
fighters, superior in maneuverability to carrier-borne Navy fighters.8
Approximately
the same number were believed to be twin-engine
bombers. All French combat planes
would be manned by able pilots.

If German planes should also respond to
an early warning issued from an intercepting
submarine or from a long-range air
patrol a few days before the convoys completed
the approach, and should the Germans
use Spanish and Spanish Moroccan
airdromes for their concentrations, their air
superiority over Morocco could be overwhelming
during the attack. The margin
of that superiority would be limited only
by the size of the stocks of aviation fuel and
bombs available to several hundred aircraft.

--21--

Political Considerations

The nature of the Allied objective in
Northwest Africa prescribed an expedition
which had to operate initially at widely
separated points located in three distinct
political units, all subject to the authority
of the French government at Vichy. All
three had to be brought under control either
by substituting Allied for French authority
as a result of a victory in arms or by enlisting
the French in the war against the Axis
powers without disturbing their control over
the restless native populations. To achieve
control by a victory in arms would manifestly
require a large force at the outset and
then a rapid build-up.

Plans for French North Africa had to take
into account political conditions throughout
the whole French empire. The French people
had not been unified by the disaster to
their nation. Even before the defeat of 1940
factionalism arising from the revolutionary
social currents of the times was rife, and
a proud and patriotic people was torn by
mutual distrust. These attitudes prevailed in
defeat. The situation was aggravated after
defeat by conflicting views over the best
way to serve French interests while the
country was partly occupied by an enemy
still engaged in war against a former ally.
Differences over these issues engendered bitter
hatreds. The Allies in planning for Operation
TORCH sought to collaborate with
friendly segments of the armed forces, of
the public administration, and of various
civilian organizations in French North
Africa. Among the available French leaders
through whom they might effect this collaboration,
Gen. Charles de Gaulle was
bound to be considered.

Just before the Germans completed their
conquest of France, General de Gaulle escaped
to England, where he laid plans for
the liberation of his country by organizing
into a fighting force all Frenchmen willing
and able to bear arms against the Germans.
On 18 June 1940 he made a now-famous
appeal to his countrymen by radio. As hostilities
in France were being concluded, and
while Pétain, after the Franco-German armistice,
was setting up a government at
Vichy in that part of France not occupied by
the Germans, de Gaulle's group in England
was also taking form. The General was recognized
by the British Government as
"Chief of all the Free French, wherever they
may be, who may join you to defend the
Allied cause" (7 August 1940). The Free
French, however, considered themselves
more than a voluntary association opposed
to the Axis; they assumed that their leaders
headed the true, legally constituted government
of France. The Vichy government
they denounced as part of the Fascist-revolutionary
movement in Europe and without
legal foundation. Their own establishment,
organized in September 1941 as the
French National Committee and formally
recognized by most of the Allied governments,
was represented as the continuation
of the legitimate government of which M.
Paul Reynaud had been the Premier until
his resignation. In the United Kingdom,
the Fighting French, as they thereafter preferred
to be termed, were supported by the
British and, indirectly, through lend-lease
channels by the United States. At various
points in the French empire, colonial governors
adhering to General de Gaulle made
local resources available for the Allied effort
to defeat the Axis powers.

The U.S. Government established channels
of communication with General de
Gaulle purely as a military leader for the
discussion of matters having military significance.

--22--

Responsibility for the liaison was
placed upon Admiral Harold Stark,9
chief of
the United States Naval Mission in the
United Kingdom. Conversations with General
de Gaulle and with members of his organization
during the months preceding the
invasion of French North Africa yielded information
of considerable value to the
Allies.10

The Vichy government led by Marshal
Pétain was accepted by the United States
as the successor in fact to Reynaud's government
under the Third Republic. Diplomatic
representation was maintained at Vichy,
both before and after Pearl Harbor. A
settled purpose of American diplomacy was
to maintain pressure upon Pétain's government
to uphold the terms of the armistice,
to deny the Axis powers any assistance and
any privileges not pledged in that document,
and to insist that the Axis powers
confine themselves to only those concessions
granted as a condition for laying down
French arms. The objective central to all
American policy was to prevent Axis use of
French colonial territories and of the French
fleet.11
An important secondary consideration
was to obtain through French governmental
channels in Vichy all possible information
concerning Axis plans and activities.
The Marshal's government countenanced
the Economic Accord of March 1941, negotiated
by Mr. Robert Murphy, U.S. envoy,
and General Weygand, Vichy's proconsul
at Algiers. It arranged for the importation
into French North Africa of limited quantities
of consumption goods for local use.
Twelve economic vice-consuls, supervising
the distribution of such imports to see that
none passed into Axis possession, reinforced
the regular consular establishment in providing
a staff of propaganda and intelligence
agents. With the secret operatives of
Allied governments, they could participate
in subversive operations as well as espionage.
They established valuable ties with resistance
organizations. They thus could supply
data for planning and agents for executing
the plans.

Devotion to the Marshal was particularly
strong in the armed forces of Vichy France
in both the unoccupied portion of Metropolitan
France and in the colonies of French
West Africa and French North Africa.
According to the prevailing opinion, de
Gaulle and his following were engaged in
dividing and weakening France, undermining
its proper leadership, and compromising
its ability to contribute effectively to
its own liberation.12
The anti-Fascist aims
of the resistance organizations undoubtedly
attracted recruits but at the expense of
antagonizing French authoritarians. Yet
the government of a country at war with the
Axis was obliged, in calculating how to
overcome the Axis, to retain every possible
advantage, to enlist all possible allies. For
the United Nations, in 1942, to renounce
the aid obtainable through friendly relations
with the government at Vichy and to
espouse the cause of Fighting France alone
seemed quixotic. To scorn the limited but
substantial contribution by de Gaulle's
movement toward eventual victory would
have been imprudent. In making war, what
seemed fitting was to make use of what each
side could contribute and to break with

The British Chiefs of Staff proposed and
the Americans agreed that the Fighting
French should not be apprised of the forthcoming
operation until it had begun. This
policy was adopted to avoid leakage of intelligence
to the enemy,14
but it was further
warranted by the complexion of French
political opinion in French North Africa.15
There, as elsewhere in the French empire,
anti-Axis Frenchmen were divided. The
monarchists were there, for example. Their
claimant to the throne of France, the Comte
de Paris, kept a residence in Spanish Morocco.
The left wing was there. Both factions
furnished recruits to a movement to terminate
Marshal Pétain's fascistic revolution.
Included in these two groups were some of
de Gaulle's adherents, but the bulk of the
French in North Africa were opposed to
him in 1942. De Gaulle's followers had
fought with the British against other
Frenchmen at Dakar and in Syria, and that
was held against him. If many opposed the
Fighting French for their actions as renegades
and rebels, much the greater number
did so because of their profound faith in
Pétain. The old Marshal was admired on
the one hand because of his authoritarian
reforms and on the other because of his policies
toward the Axis, policies which were
regarded as very shrewd. Pétain, they believed,
was only yielding to the storm of
necessity, bending only as far as he was
pressed; and he was expected to straighten
up as the pressure relaxed. His supporters
were convinced that he, Weygand, and
Darlan had held the Germans rather closely
to the armistice terms, that he was able to
dissemble his anti-Nazi feelings, and that
he had France's best interests at heart. In
the early autumn of 1942 the loyalty of most
French inhabitants of the colonies in North
Africa, including the most anti-German
among them, was toward the government
at Vichy.

During the planning for Operation
SUPER-GYMNAST (one of the early plans for
the invasion of North Africa) immediately
after Pearl Harbor, the twelve economic
vice-consuls in French North Africa were
reinforced by agents of the American Office
of Co-ordinator of Information, men who
were sent to establish confidential relations
with leaders among the natives and with
resistance groups among the French. Coordination
of secret intelligence and special
operations by American and British agents
was achieved through Lt. Col. William A.
Eddy (Marine Corps), American naval
attaché at Tangier. He kept in steady communication
with a British counterpart in
Gibraltar.

The initial purpose of the resistance organizations
had been to oppose occupation
of French North Africa by Axis forces, particularly
by airborne elements. This goal
was revised during the first four months of
1942 when an Allied expedition was in prospect.
Their new mission was to assist Allied
landings and, during them, to control pro-Axis segments of the North African population.
Had the operation been undertaken
in May 1942 the Allies might have found
there a group of friendly French who were
numerous, eager, and energetic. When the
operation was postponed, Allied relations

--24--

with these resistance groups and American
operations under the Economic Accord
both suffered a relapse. Connections remained,
nonetheless, which could be revived
after the planning of Allied Force
Headquarters for TORCH began.16

In French North Africa, the Allies hoped
for weak French military resistance to
TORCH which could be reduced further by
(1) the intervention of friendly French resistance
groups to sabotage the execution of
French military defense plans, or (2) the
enlistment of the French authorities in a
common endeavor. The wide expanse of
the area to be brought under control and
the complex character of its non-European
population made highly desirable the recruitment
of the French North African territories
as active allies.

Strategic Decisions

Allied strategic planning for TORCH
began in London on 31 July, when a group
of British and American officers constituting
the Combined Planning Staff first met
under the leadership of Brig. Gen. Alfred
M. Gruenther. They prepared an exploratory
plan which amounted to a modification
of what the British planners had already
sketched. It called for the seizure of two
large and two small ports within the Mediterranean
and a subsequent seizure of Casablanca.
Four divisions were to be employed
in the assault. Later convoys were to bring
from six to eight more divisions The planners
were convinced that insufficient naval
escort ships for simultaneous landings on
the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts made
it necessary to postpone the Casablanca assault
to a second phase. The Joint Chiefs
of Staff immediately scrutinized the findings of the London planners, for they were
obliged to find the earliest possible date for
Operation TORCH consonant with a sound
concept of the operation. The directive from
the Combined Chiefs of Staff to the commander
in chief had not yet been formulated,
so that the mission was not yet firmly
defined. On 31 July, planners in Washington
expressed serious doubt about abandoning
simultaneous assault landings on the
western coast as well as inside the Mediterranean,
but at the same time noted that
some plan was essential in case unfavorable
weather forced all landings to be made inside
the Mediterranean. In this very first
exchange of ideas, the four interrelated key
issues thus arose: (1) the date for D Day;
(2) the desirability of making all landings
inside the Mediterranean; (3) the feasibility
of making any outside landings on the Atlantic
coast of Morocco; and (4) the
amount of available naval escort, carrier-borne
aircraft, and fire support.17

The earlier the operation could begin,
the more likely that it would achieve some
degree of surprise and, at the same time,
benefit from the enemy's involvement with
operations on the Eastern Front. After the
middle of October, German air units might
be expected to transfer from the campaign
in Russia to the Mediterranean basin. Unless
the Allies struck in French North Africa
by then, the Nazis' pressure on the government
of Spain would be stronger, and the
inclination of the Soviet Union to drop out
of the war might become greater. If some
of the President's associates wished the
operation to begin in time to affect the

--25--

American Congressional elections in November,
he himself seems to have left the
decision to be controlled by military considerations.
But he did not accept the advice
of General Marshall and Admiral King that
the earliest practicable date would be 7 November
without careful analysis of the reasons
offered for it.18
The governing factor
in this estimate was the length of time required
to convert ocean liners to combat
loaders (assault transports). For several
more weeks Allied strategists sought persistently
to have an earlier D Day through
plans which would not require the use of
these particular ships.

The operation might have begun earlier
if the landings near Casablanca could have
been either entirely dispensed with or postponed
to a second phase of the attack, when
it could be executed with some of the same
shipping used in the first landings. The
pressure for such a solution was strong, particularly
in an early phase of the planning.
The preliminary outline of 31 July proposed
a deferred Casablanca landing, while the
plan submitted to the Combined Chiefs of
Staff with the date 21 August dropped the
Casablanca landing altogether. The War
Department planners insisted on including
an attack to capture Casablanca, in order
to insure a line of communications to the
United States. They also insisted on its
being simultaneous with the operations inside
the Mediterranean, in order to make the
maximum impression upon the French and
Spanish authorities by such a show of force.
In London, particularly among the British
planners, the hazards to Allied control of
the Strait of Gibraltar and of Gibraltar itself
were deemed less substantial than they
appeared to be in the thinking at Washington.
In London they were aware, moreover,
that the landings near Casablanca
might well be thwarted by the incidence of
unfavorable weather with high swell and
tumultuous surf, and that the attempt to
safeguard the Gibraltar area by such an expedition
might thus be frustrated.19

The basic problem in this connection was
to determine where the Axis powers would
resist the Allied expedition. Would they appropriate
airfields in Spain and neutralize
Gibraltar by air attack? Would the Spanish
assist them in a ground attack on Gibraltar,
as Hitler had once expected, and perhaps
by hostile action from Spanish Morocco as
well? Or would the Germans and Italians
focus their resistance in the Sicilian straits
and northeastern Tunisia? The British concluded
that the Spanish would do nothing
and that the enemy's main opposition would
come in Tunisia. The Americans were far
less confident that the Spanish Government
would actually remain neutral if the Germans
wished to use Spanish territory, and
far less certain that the German Air Force
would not interfere with the vital activities
planned at Gibraltar.20

The Allied planners also differed over the
degree of haste necessary in entering Tunisia.
In order to establish Allied military
control over all North Africa, the Allied
Force had to gain possession of Tunisia.
British planners were convinced that if Axis

--26--

occupation of Tunisia were not forestalled
by elements of the Allied Force in the first
assault, and with the support of the first
follow-up convoys, the enemy would become
too strong to dislodge without a protracted
struggle. Landings as far to the east as Bône,
near the border between Algeria and Tunisia,
were therefore urged by them despite
the likelihood of enemy air attacks. The Axis
line of communication to Tunisia would be
very short. The Axis rate of build-up could
be much swifter. Time would be on the
enemy's side. Against this view, the President
and his military advisers believed that
the enemy could land nothing of consequence
in Tunisia except by air for the first
two weeks.21

The first product of the Combined Planning
Staff after the wholly tentative and
incomplete sketch of 31 July was a Draft
Outline Plan (Partial), Operation TORCH,
of 9 August.22
It prescribed a D Day of
5 November in order to make possible simultaneous
landings both inside and outside
the Mediterranean, at Bône, Algiers, Oran,
and Casablanca. Two weeks of critical
analysis, counterproposals, and revision followed,
after which the Combined Chiefs of
Staff received the full Outline Plan of 21
August accompanied by General Eisenhower's
comments. These comments pointed
out how tentative were some of the important
provisions of the plan. They expressed
his judgment that the forces provided
by the two Allied governments were
too small to carry out the mission stated in
his directive. Landings near Casablanca had
been abandoned in this plan in favor of
but three attacks, all within the Mediterranean, at Oran, Algiers, and Bône. D Day
was set at 15 October, the latest date holding
promise of any beneficial consequences
for the Soviet forces fighting the Eastern
Front.23
Another main factor affecting
planning at this point was the grave shortage
of naval components available for the
Allied Force. When Eisenhower met in
London with U.S. Navy representatives on
11 August, the Combined Planning Staff
had not received an allocation of either
Royal Navy or U.S. Navy units. The Commander
in Chief, Allied Force, was then told
that the difficulties facing the U.S. Navy
in fulfilling existing missions and in furnishing
a task force for the Casablanca attack
would preclude its participation in any
naval operations within the Mediterranean.
At most, the U.S. Navy contemplated enabling
one or two battleships from the British
Home Fleet at Scapa Flow to see action
in the Mediterranean with other elements
of the Royal Navy by temporarily substituting
American battleships for them at Scapa
Flow. Apparently detecting an air of hesitation
and of undue independence, Eisenhower
emphasized that the U.S. Army and
Navy were both under the President's explicit
orders making TORCH an operation
of the highest priority, that the British
armed services were in a parallel position,
and that the Combined Chiefs of Staff
would require that the navies of both countries
overcome all obstacles in executing the
operation.24

Two days later, when a British aircraft
carrier was sunk in the Mediterranean, the
British Chiefs of Staff in London, with the
American naval representatives concurring,

--27--

concluded that escort vessels, fire support
vessels, and aircraft carriers would not be
available in sufficient strength for two major
landings on the Mediterranean coast simultaneous
with an attack outside on the Atlantic
coast. The inescapable choice confronting
the planners lay between canceling
any assault landings at Bône, or even Algiers,
on the one hand, and omitting such landings
near Casablanca, on the other. In the first
formal complete Outline Plan (dated 21
August) the decision to seize Casablanca
from the sea was abandoned, and the plan
to land at Bône retained. An American task
force was to sail for Oran from the United
States, and the largest task force (American
and British) was to sail for Algiers from the
United Kingdom.

Planners also had to take into account
one other consideration. Intelligence reports
indicated that British forces would be vigorously
resisted by the French. It was therefore
deemed advisable to maintain, as far
as possible, an American character for any
Allied assault.

General Eisenhower was so dissatisfied
with the draft plan that he requested a revised
directive reducing his mission to proportions
consistent with the resources made
available to him. His strictures produced
different responses in London and in Washington.25
The British Chiefs of Staff abandoned
their insistence on an early D Day,
accepted the simultaneous landings near
Casablanca which General Eisenhower had
declared so necessary, and proposed a fifth,
small-scale landing at Philippeville, between
Algiers and Bône. These recommendations
were contingent on the contribution of additional American naval forces.26
The Joint
Chiefs of Staff contemplated an all-American
landing force attack at two points, Casablanca
and Oran only. The American
Chiefs were also prepared to adjust the commander
in chief's directive, for the U.S.
Navy could not meet the expanded requirements
of the changes proposed by the British.27
Discussion of the plan had reached an
impasse, culminating in a long and perhaps
at times acrimonious session of the Combined
Chiefs of Staff on 28 August, when
the President and the Prime Minister intervened.28

The Prime Minister returned to London
late on 24 August from a visit to Marshal
Joseph Stalin in Moscow. He had borne the
brunt of the Russian dictator's invective
over the Allied decision to occupy French
North Africa rather than to open the
promised "second front" in western France
in 1942. He had enlisted Stalin's approbation
of Operation TORCH by putting it in
the best possible light. He found in London
that the planning had swung toward a date
much later than he deemed wise and a concept
of the operation which overtaxed the
resources thus far made available. In the
employment of the actual means at hand,
the Allied planners were in disagreement.
His discussions with General Eisenhower
and Maj. Gen. Mark Wayne Clark, and the
impetus which he was able to give to the
effort to find additional British naval resources
accelerated the process of decision.
Soon he and the President were engaged in

--28--

a daily exchange of cables which moved
swiftly toward an Allied agreement. Mr.
Churchill agreed that the British would accede
to an American wish for an all-Amencan
assault, with British forces arriving
after French acquiescence had been obtained,
but at the same time he tried to
make such a solution of the impasse among
professional military chiefs unnecessary.29

On 4 September, the U.S. Navy reported
the naval units which it could furnish.30
At the same time, the President and Prime
Minister were reaching an agreement upon
three landing forces, mainly American, with
a reduction of some 5,000 men each in those
proposed for Casablanca and for Oran, thus
providing the American element for the
force to be landed near Algiers. Each would
have an American commander. No landings
would be made east of Algiers until
it had capitulated, after which British troops
would be carried to eastern Algerian ports
and continue into Tunisia. The troops
would be carried to the inside landings in
British shipping, except for American vessels
already in the United Kingdom and
those in which one regimental combat team
would be sent from the United States to
Algiers via the United Kingdom. The outside
landing would be made from an American
convoy. The Royal Navy would furnish
escort and support within the Mediterranean,
as the U.S. Navy representatives
had thought necessary since early August,
while the outside landings would be escorted
and protected by American warships.31
One major point remained to be
determined--the date of D Day. The Combined
Chiefs of Staff finally gave responsibility
for that choice to the Commander in
Chief, Allied Force.32

The culminating Anglo-American executive
agreement was formulated in a provisional
outline plan at once, and eventually
submitted on 20 September for official action
by the Combined Chiefs of Staff.33
Some fundamental questions remained to
be settled, but the decisions of 5 September
enabled the agencies of the two governments
to proceed with operational and logistical
planning and preparations on a firm
basis after six weeks of delay and shifting
uncertainty.

The concept of the operation and a general
allocation of ground, sea, and air elements
to the expeditionary force were now
determined. The planned pattern of the assault
cut down to the narrowest of margins
the possibility of occupying Tunisia within
a brief period of Allied superiority over the
Axis forces likely to be sent there. If the initial
attempt should fail, the operation would
be protracted in proportion to the strength
which the Axis powers chose to commit.
Under the most favorable circumstances,
advance forces would be established in
northern Tunisia by mid-December, with
a moderate number of aircraft operating
against Axis supply lines into Tripoli and
against Tripoli itself. These forces might
consolidate the occupation of central and
southern Tunisia as far as Gabès by the middle
of January 1943. A corps of two British

--29--

divisions could then be ready to move into
Tripolitania at the beginning of March.
The British Eighth Army, attacking westward,
might by the most hopeful estimate
arrive at Tripoli in mid-January. Military
control of northern Africa from the Atlantic
to the Red Sea would by such a schedule be
achieved at the earliest by March, and
might take considerably longer, with a corresponding
drain on Allied military resources.34

Strategic decisions which remained for
determination until near the end of the
planning period included those governing
relations with the French. The initial contacts
between armed forces defending
French North Africa and those of the Allies
were bound to produce problems of a most
delicate character. What would Allied
policy be toward French airplanes or submarines
met at sea? How should French
merchant ships be treated? Should French
warships be fired upon before they opened
hostilities? If the Allied convoys were too
passive, damaging blows might be struck
before they could hit back; but if they acted
aggressively, they might promote a battle
which neither side desired.

The directive covering the treatment of
the French armed forces during initial contact
was drafted finally on 5 October.35
No
offensive action was to be taken against
them by the Allies unless in reply to definitely
hostile action. French warships, therefore,
were to be allowed to pass undeterred
through the Strait of Gibraltar and even
north of the thirty-sixth parallel, north latitude,
and to move past Allied convoys without
interruption if they kept clear after
being so warned. Should they fail to keep
clear, they were then to be destroyed but
Allied ships were to avoid, as far as possible,
firing the first shot. Unescorted submarines
outside territorial waters and darkened ships
which withheld identification would be
treated as hostile. French airplanes would
be treated as hostile when approaching Allied
ships or Gibraltar prior to the landings.
Once the landings began, airplanes, merchant
ships, and naval vessels which were
preparing to get under way, or which disregarded
orders from an Allied commander;
any ship which attempted to scuttle
itself, or which failed to identify itself
properly if encountered at night; and any
shore battery or other defensive installation
or moored vessel on which activity indicated
hostile intentions--all were at once to be
treated as hostile. No action against French
air bases would be taken before the assault,
but Gibraltar would be defended against air
attack at all times.

Once it was deemed necessary to engage
in offensive action in a certain area, the action
was to be opened with maximum intensity
and pressed with the utmost vigor
until all active resistance was terminated.
Commanders were empowered to interpret
the hostile action of one unit in an area as
an indication of similar intent on the part of
all other units in that area if attendant circumstances
seemed to justify such an interpretation.
When the resistance ceased, offensive
action was also to be suspended until

--30--

its resumption clearly became necessary.
Unnecessary damage to ships and harbor installations
was to be avoided by every possible
precaution.

A rather detailed set of rules covering the
treatment of Vichy French merchant shipping
was drafted at Allied Force Headquarters,
but later these were rejected by the
Joint Chiefs as unnecessarily restrictive upon
the commander in chief; the accepted principles
of international law were to be followed
by him, and need not be spelled out.36

The ultimate status of the French colonies
and of the government at Vichy was a question
of high policy for decision by the President
and the Prime Minister. Were the
Allies going to bring into existence an independent
French government in French
North Africa, rivaling that of Vichy, or were
they even to promote the disruption of the
government at Vichy? The President, when
faced with this issue, finally asserted that he
had no policy to acknowledge other than
that of defeating the Axis powers and of
preserving French administration in the
French colonies. The propaganda plans
were adjusted to bring them into full conformity
with this policy, submitted to the
Combined Chiefs of Staff, and the resulting
directive was issued by Allied Force Headquarters
as its General Order 4.37

The occupation of French North Africa
was, in accordance with the strategic decisions
reached during the planning phase,
to be executed by forces of both the United
States and Great Britain, and directed by
an Allied commander in chief aided by a
combined staff of both nationalities. The
three major objectives of the assault landings
were Algiers, Oran, and Casablanca,
each to be taken by a force under an American
ground commander. The Eastern Assault
Force attacking Algiers would contain
British and American troops, landing from
British and American transports, protected
by British naval elements, and supported by
British air units, initially carrier-borne and
later land-based. The Center Task Force
attacking Oran was to consist of American
ground troops, conveyed and supported by
the Royal Navy, and aided by British
carrier-borne and American land-based aviation.
The Western Task Force attacking
Casablanca was to be American in all three
components. Allied leaders hoped that the
French forces in North Africa would at first
either welcome the invasion or at most
furnish but nominal resistance, and that in
the end they would join the Allies in military
operations for the liberation of France.
The Allies would therefore approach French
North Africa prepared to fight but preferring
an amicable association in arms.